Home for the Holidays! This month at WFWA we celebrate stories prompted by that pull to
reunite with family when the holiday season approaches. Here you will find five enjoyable titles that
fit this theme — perfect reads as well as good choices for seasonal gifts.
Christmas by Candlelight by Sylvie Kurtz
Claire Chandler’s passion has just been put on hold. After her parents unexpectedly pass away, she turns down a coveted wildlife photography grant to move back to New Hampshire and run their inn. She’s duty-bound to a family dream — one that isn’t hers. But when a face from the past whose vacation she ruined as a kid shows up as a guest, she vows to turn the grumpy author’s stay into a fun-filled festive retreat. Struggling to keep up with everyone’s never-ending demands, Claire does her best to help her prickly adversary reclaim his muse. But as she juggles a challenging cookie tour, an ex-boyfriend’s sudden arrival, and a powerful nor’easter cutting the power, she fears that all her guests will unwrap is disappointment.
Waterbury Winter by Linda Stewart Henley
Barnaby Brown, an artist who has lost his way, has had enough of freezing winters, a dead-end job, and his lonely life with his parrot in Waterbury, Connecticut. It’s Christmas Eve. His car crashes into a snow bank and he has to walk to work wearing a boot with a hole in the sole. When he arrives home, he finds that his beloved companion Popsicle, a green Amazon parrot, has flown away. He wants to start his life anew, find his true home in California, and seek the inspiration to paint, but he has more than a few obstacles to overcome including debts and a drinking habit.
The Cranberry Inn by Barbara Josselsoh
Laurel Hanover, living in New York with her eight-year-old son, is summoned home by her father to celebrate Christmas at the country inn in the Adirondack Mountains where she grew up and which her family has owned since before she was born. But when she walks through the door, she’s shocked to find the inn in disrepair, and a letter saying her father will be gone until Christmas Eve, leaving her in charge of the inn for the holidays. This responsibility puts her in the path of a mysterious actor as well as her old high-school crush, and she realizes that home still has a lot of life lessons to offer. Laurel thought this was going to be the perfect Christmas and that maybe she’d found her happy, but now there is nothing to stop her from running back to New York the moment the baubles come down … or is there?
The Housewife Assassin’s Killer Christmas Tips by Josie Brown
Even though Christmas is a time for giving, undercover assassin Donna so wishes someone hadn’t given her latest nemesis a heat-seeking missile. If she doesn’t find the perfect present for her youngest daughter, scope out a secret Santa gift for her picky and super nosy co-worker, one-up last year’s Christmas tree decoration, save the president of the United States from an imminent attack, attend a couples’ cruise ship party, and knock off her felonious ex-husband, she knows that Christmas will be a bust. Donna’s determined to get off the naughty list once and for all by Christmas Eve.
Christmas Comes to Valentine by Curtiss Ann Matlock
From USA Today bestselling author Curtiss Ann Matlock comes a warmhearted human comedy of love, loss, and second chances.
Christmas comes to Valentine, and everyone has a secret desire … Almost-thirteen-year-old Corrine Pendley longs to touch the promise of the young woman she sees in the mirror. She dreams of a real kiss from her bashful boyfriend and to have a horse of her very own. What she does not want is for her mother to come to town and spoil it all. But Anita Pendley is determined to have a second chance with the daughter she left behind, and she will brave the loss of her fiancé and challenge her sister Marilee to do so. Even in the not-so-sleepy town of Valentine, Oklahoma, life has its struggles and heartache, but this is Christmas after all, the season where both unexpected love and bright miracles can happen, and in Valentine they usually do.
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